Kevin O'Connor loves Ayn Rand so much that he named his second son, Kian Rand, after her. "Ayn Rand changed my life completely," says the DoubleClick (DCLK) CEO, who got hooked on Rand in his early 20s. "Finally, here was someone who said that it's human nature to act in self-interest and that there's nothing wrong with that."
Long the favorite of business leaders like Alan Greenspan, Rand is everywhere in the Internet Economy - and not just on executive bookshelves. Her biggest fans name companies after her, sneak Rand references into advertisements and proselytize to their colleagues about her.
Rand, credited with founding objectivism and the author of The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism, among others, held that man must exist for his own sake, "neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself." She believed life's highest purpose is the pursuit of man's own rational self-interest and his own happiness. To Rand, laissez-faire capitalism was the ideal - not just a sociopolitical economic goal but a moral imperative. These ideas fit perfectly into the Internet Economy's adoration of entrepreneurs who strive to impress their vision on the uncharted territories of the business world. Just as Scientology is fashionable with Hollywood's elite, objectivism seems to be the reigning philosophy among the Net set.
Evidence of this movement would be spooky if it weren't so bold. A Baltimore-based Web shop called Rand Interactive prints the first line from The Fountainhead on the back of its business cards. WebTV founder Steve Perlman named his incubator Rearden Steel after a corporation in Atlas Shrugged. San Mateo, Calif.-based customer-service software firm E.piphany (EPNY) has an Ayn Rand conference room. Cypress Semiconductor (CY) CEO T.J. Rodgers hired an objectivist philosopher to lecture his executive staff on "the DNA of capitalism." Robert Frasca named Galt Technologies after a character in Atlas Shrugged and sent copies of the book to clients of his company's mutual-fund information service.
"It's psychotic to read that stuff and not live in the Valley," says Bill Cockayne, CTO of Scout Electromedia. "Her work provides a mythos to the Valley." Many people who read Rand gravitate toward industries like the Internet for their open opportunities. Gary Hull, a professor of business ethics at Duke University (dossier) who believes he'd "probably be dead" if it weren't for Rand, says "the Internet is like America's second industrial revolution because it's creating new markets."
Perhaps Rand's biggest cheerleader among the Net set is John McCaskey, cofounder and VP of product development at E.piphany. The engineer in McCaskey loves Rand's rational thinking. While reading her books in college, he was thrilled to find a writer who portrayed businessmen as heroes. He now disseminates Rand literature to fans and prospective converts alike. "John McCaskey is the Johnny Appleseed of Rand," adds Hull.
"Our society says that personal ambition is bad. It's only OK to make money if you give it away," says McCaskey. "But Rand gives you a confidence in the morality of your ambitions. She says it's not only OK but actually good to build wealth."
It's no surprise Internet entrepreneurs are open to this message. Devoted objectivist Yaron Brook, managing partner at San Jose, Calif.-based venture firm BH Equity, believes Rand can help entrepreneurs who succeed but feel guilty about their wealth. Brook, who's also executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif., sends recently funded companies "congratulations kits" with an inspirational Rand quote and an offer for a free copy of Atlas Shrugged.
But not all Rand fans agree that a nagging conscience is a bad thing. Her books also can be unrealistically absolutist, and take free market economics to its most reductionist extreme. Love Goel, CEO of Personify, agrees with Rand that the human spirit is capable of incredible things. "But I feel negatively about her selfishness," says Goel. "Many of us have made more money than our children will ever need. If you've had success, you have a responsibility to make a difference."
Scout's Cockayne adores Rand's characters' chutzpah, but finds her philosophy "incredibly flawed." Says Cockayne: "It assumes perfect democracy and that everyone acts out of rational self-interest. But people are irrational. Egoism and helping others don't really go together."
